Sabrina’s voice again. I did not look at her. I looked at table eleven. Long enough that Alyssa’s eyes shifted and she dropped her gaze to her glass. Long enough that when I finally pulled my eyes away and made them land on Sabrina, she was already looking at me with a curious expression. She had clocked it. That the man she’d just bid twenty thousand dollars on was looking at a different woman.
Her smile recovered fast.
“Going once. Going twice. Congratulations to Ms. Sabrina West, our winner at twenty thousand dollars.”
I stepped off the stage and the next bachelor went up and the room moved on.
The band kicked back up after the auction, and the dancing portion of the evening began. I ended up at the back of the room where Khaz was waiting with two bourbons.
He handed me one. “Good speech, cuz.”
“Thank you.”
I looked out at the room and found Alyssa near the silent auction tables. A lawyer I half-recognized was talking to her too close, leaning in, doing the thing men do when they think they’ve found something nobody else has noticed. She was wearing a polite smile, keeping her glass of wine between them.
Khaz looked at me. “You good?”
I nodded.
“Julian!” called out Vincent Thompson, a real estate developer I’d known for years. He approached with two other men I knew, Bill Hayes and Robert Lewis.
“Hell of an event,” Vincent said, clapping me on the shoulder. “You really outdid yourselves.”
“Appreciate it,” I replied, eyes still on Alyssa. The lawyer had leaned in closer and set his hand on her wrist to make a point. She slipped her hand free without making a thing of it.
I set my drink down.
“Speaking of impressive,” Bill said with a slow grin, following my line of sight. “Who’s the sister in the black dress? That woman isfine!”
My blood was already boiling, but I kept my expression neutral. “Alyssa Carter.”
“Goddamn,” Robert said appreciatively. “That dress is doing everything it’s supposed to do.”
“Dangerous,” Vincent added, his eyes tracking across the room towhere Alyssa had moved on to the silent auction items. “Woman knows exactly what she’s working with.”
“I’m gonna make an introduction,” Bill said, adjusting his collar. “Maybe she’d be interested in some company later.”
The casual way they were discussing her, like she was their entertainment for the evening, made my vision blur.
“That’s not happening,” I snapped, glaring at them.
The three of them looked at me with surprise.
“Damn, Julian,” Vincent laughed. “You know her like that?”
“She’s spoken for,” I said flatly.
“By who?” Robert pressed.
“Just find someone else to talk to,” I said, turning away from their confused faces.
I heard Vincent mutter something I couldn’t make out as I walked away.
Khaz fell in step with me. “You growled at three dudes you’ve known forever.”
I didn’t respond.
“You know these guys in here are naturally gonna assume she’s single, right?” he asked.
